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The "hit" in OneHitWonder

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Adept (Holding A Herring) Relationship Status: Having tea with Cthulhu
#1: Nov 8th 2024 at 9:32:15 PM

So One-Hit Wonder is used to describe a creator—particularly music artists—with only one known successful work. However, the description seems to limit the "hit" as the song being placed on major charts like Billboard, particularly the Hot 100, although I'm not sure if this is a good parameter to gauge examples.

Let's see two hypothetical scenario:

  • Artist A is a popular musician whose songs consistently gain millions—if not tens of millions—of hits, but only "ABC Song" has ever been charted on Hot 100.
  • Artist B is an indie band whose most popular song is the "XYZ song", which has over 1 million views/plays on YouTube/Spotify/etc. Their other songs only have about 100k views at most. However, not even "XYZ song" has ever peaked at any major music charts.

If we're defining "hit" solely by chart placement, the first scenario would count as an example of One-Hit Wonder, while the second is not, although I think it should be the other way around.

Also, I'm a bit wary of many of the genre examples, where there's a lot of "this artist is a major name in their subgenre but only has one song that is a hit 'mainstream'" entries. Just because the majority of their works are only hits within a specific target audience, doesn't mean they're not hits at all.

Thoughts?

Edited by Adept on Nov 9th 2024 at 8:03:08 PM

themayorofsimpleton Short-Term Projects Herald | he/him from the Island of Koridai (Captain) Relationship Status: I won't say I'm in love
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#2: Nov 9th 2024 at 8:51:00 AM

Something worth noting with regards to this trope is that it used to be that Billboard required a physical single release for a song to make the Hot 100 — something labels didn't always do. Per the linked article:

Ten songs debuted at No. 1 between 1995 and 1998 because a Billboard rule at the time stated songs must have a physical single release to chart, so labels would wait for significant radio airplay to build up before releasing the physical version to ensure a high debut, Billboard magazine reported.

What this meant was several popular songs flat out didn't chart for this reason. Take "Fly" by Sugar Raynote  for example. At least in America, "Fly" is remembered as a major hit of the latter half of The '90s. But its chart performance? #1 Radio Airplay (plus #1 on Canada's charts), but not even on the Hot 100 — because there wasn't a single release in the U.S., as stated by the article:

It was ineligible to chart on the Hot 100 because a physical CD single was not released commercially in the US.

As it pertains to One-Hit Wonder, I'd be in favor of a TRS to change the rules a bit — so that Hot 100/charts in general performance isn't the only requirement.

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Nov 9th 2024 at 11:54:16 AM

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MorganWick (Elder Troper)
#3: Nov 10th 2024 at 2:12:18 AM

I'm not sure changing the rules for what qualifies, but not the actual definition, requires TRS, but I could be wrong.

Adept (Holding A Herring) Relationship Status: Having tea with Cthulhu
#4: Nov 11th 2024 at 12:19:44 AM

[up]I thought modifying scope usually requires TRS. Removing the chart requirements may count as "expanding the trope", which is a TRS issue.

MorganWick (Elder Troper)
#5: Nov 11th 2024 at 3:05:52 AM

The question is whether you're changing the actual meaning of the trope, or merely the standards for what qualifies as an example for us. Are you changing the actual definition, or merely how to enforce it? When the Complete Monster and Magnificent Bastard threads were active, would changing their standards for what qualified for those pages have required TRS if it wasn't changing what those pages were trying to capture, only how they captured it?

Again, I could be wrong here, and I was responding to themayorofsimpleton more than you. In my mind, adjusting what qualifies as a chart hit is changing the rules, but expanding beyond pure chart hits would be a definitional change requiring TRS.

themayorofsimpleton Short-Term Projects Herald | he/him from the Island of Koridai (Captain) Relationship Status: I won't say I'm in love
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#6: Nov 11th 2024 at 6:59:05 AM

I mean, I’m in favor of expanding beyond pure chart hits, so I think a TRS would be appropriate. I was just bringing up an example of how chart hits aren’t everything.

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